#39 – Defining the Feminine - Summer 2012-Winter 2013

A comprehensive short list of books that have defined femininity. What is it to be feminine? What does it mean to be a woman? How have all the facets of the feminine combined and been disembodied over the past two centuries? We will begin with the contemporary "new woman" model as presented in Hunger Games. Next, we will trace these roots from early Victorian roots through Modernism to understand the growth and dissent involved in defining the feminine. ~ Kami Zoellner

June 21 - Kathy --> Alanna
Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins
(link is to trilogy, you'll not want to stop with the first book!)

July 26 - Mary ---> Ann A ---> Kathy
Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
(including free Kindle edition)

August 16 - Ann A ---> Mary
The Life of Charlotte Brontë – Elizabeth Gaskell
(including $.99 Kindle version) --- AUGUST IS CANCELLED

Saturday, September 15 - GUY THING
A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole

October 18 - Alanna --> Kathy --> Ann A
Studies on Hysteria – Josef Breuer, Sigmund Freud, James Stratchey

November 15 - Marty
The Second Sex – Simone de Beauvoir

December 6 - Kathy
The Year of Magical Thinking – Joan Didion
What Alice Forgot – Liane Moriarty

January 17 (not January 7), 2013 YIKES - Ann G
Silent Spring – Rachel Carson

February 21 - Mary
The Lover – Marguerite Duras ---> FEBRUARY WAS SNOWED OUT

March 7 - Ann A
The Beauty Myth – Naomi Wolf ---->
The Lover – Marguerite Duras
NOTE: We read The North China Lover version of this book in Session #4.

April 11 - Kathy --> Mary
The Life of Charlotte Brontë – Elizabeth Gaskell
(including $.99 Kindle version) ---->
The Beauty Myth – Naomi Wolf

May 16 - Kathy
The Life of Charlotte Brontë – Elizabeth Gaskell
(including $.99 Kindle version)